Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (8 page)

The AC kicked on as they entered the kitchen.

“What’s your man-story anyway?” Sophie reached for a napkin from a shell holder in the middle of the kitchen table and wiped away the condensation puddled under her now-warm glass. She grabbed more ice from the fridge, as if the kitchen was her own.

Callie dumped the warm contents of her melted drink down the sink and refilled with water. “No man-story. I used to be married to a great guy. Now he’s gone.”

“Oh,” Sophie said. “Dead or divorced?”

The glass halted inches from her lips, then lowered. “You would ask that? Seriously?” Callie didn’t talk about John with strangers. Or anyone, for that matter.

“I could ask your mother,” Sophie said, trying to tease.

Callie gulped her water, reminding herself Sophie was riding the crest from the metaphysical energy of the crowd down the street. “If she intended to tell you, you’d already know, wouldn’t you?”

Sophie’s face softened. “I just sensed something there, Callie.”

Callie went to the refrigerator. “You want cheese with that drink? I’ve got grapes and can slice an apple. Hopefully my paring knife won’t slip in your direction.”

“Go ahead. Keep to yourself, sweetie, but I’m telling you, it’s not good for you.”

Callie washed an apple, then rubbed it dry with flourish. She ripped the stem off. “You’re naïve as hell, you know that?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

The knife sank into the pulp, banging as it hit the cutting board, splitting the fruit cleanly in two. “Drop the topic, Sophie.”

AN HOUR LATER, Sophie left for home two gins looser than when she arrived. A daydreamer, Callie deduced, crimping a blind to watch her neighbor take the steps, but Callie had to admit Sophie had rolled with all of Callie’s punches. She tried to guess how children named Zeus and Sprite would turn out under the parental influence of such an ethereal spirit.

Nowhere near the likes of Beverly.

She never wanted to be Beverly to Jeb. Like any teen, he chomped at the bit to be free of oversight, but not like she’d been with
her
mother. He bent over backwards to tend to Callie, being the strong arm on days she found tough to endure. She wanted him to attend college with its social exposure and independence, like any kid his age, and not have to worry about her.

She’d envisioned this time with John, the two of them teary-eyed as they helped Jeb carry his belongings to a dorm room, Bonnie darting around their legs asking a hundred questions.

Callie poured the gin and tonic she denied herself in front of Sophie. A tall one in an iced tea glass, suiting her thirst. She’d abstained long enough. As she headed to the porch on the screened and shaded side of the house, the turntable snared her attention, along with its assorted array of seventies-and sixties-era music. Most of the LPs were her mother’s Neil Diamond vinyls. Twenty of them. Placing her drink on the mantle, she stacked the player with three of them, marveling the record changer still worked, not the least surprised her mother hadn’t replaced this music on CD.

She blew dust off the needle like Beverly had taught her as a child. She tapped it with her index finger to check the speakers. A smile crossed her face at remembering the routine. She turned the player on. As the arm lifted and the album dropped, she retrieved her gin. At the opening bars of
Cracklin’ Rosie
, she flopped into a deeply cushioned Adirondack chair out on the porch and laid her head back, singing the words softly to herself, waggling her right foot to the beat.

Beverly should have named her Rosie, considering the million times she’d played this song. It hit the music stores a few years before Callie was born. She knew when most of Diamond’s songs came out, having listened to her mother prattle on about the genius of the music. Each song sank Callie deeper into the cushion.

At the end of each album, she emerged to refill her glass.

As a jogger passed her home, she remembered she hadn’t run. She’d force herself back to that routine in the morning. She wasn’t old enough to go soft yet.

She sipped her drink, light-headed.

Callie hadn’t come here to solve cases, but the taste of the island’s crime spree had whetted her appetite. But she didn’t do that anymore. So, what the hell was she
supposed
to do?

A question she hadn’t wanted to face.

Her deep exhale barreled out from an imprisoned frustration she couldn’t pin a label to, and she was grateful to have no one around to question why she seemed down. Just birdsong and distant murmuring waves. Low tide from the sound of it.

The turntable’s arm lifted, whirred, and clicked off. That final click comforted her in an odd way. Silence pervaded the night, her porch, her thoughts.
Just me alone in this place. Just like it’ll be in the fall.

Her unsteady gaze settled on the knickknacks of coral and aqua hanging around the screened porch. Faded yellows and baby blues accented decorative buoys hung on white rope; a miniature sailboat floated on a rattan end table next to coasters made of shells and glued sand.

The first place of her own. Residing the past year in her mother’s Middleton shadow had stunk, often yanking her back into an old attitude she thought she’d outgrown. Two weeks after her graduation from the University of South Carolina criminal justice school, she’d moved out of her parents’ home and hadn’t told them where she was headed until she packed her car. Beverly assumed her dramatic I’m-so-hurt role, her father puffing up all protective of his wife, as if Callie had betrayed them. Maybe she had, but years later, nothing seemed to have changed.

An ice cube slid into her mouth, and she crunched it after sucking the alcohol off.

So why the hell had she run home this time, knowing exactly how the age-old scenario would play out? Was it the logistics of the Southern family? A culture she couldn’t escape? Had Beverly trained her as a child to think of home as the ultimate sanctuary, the only proper place to go when life turned to shit? How ironic. She only felt like shit when she came home.

Her ears rang. She would get up and put on another album, but her legs weighed heavy and cumbersome. The instant she used them, the room would spin, and she wasn’t sure she’d make it inside, much less aim her mother’s precious record player needle on one of her oh-so-priceless albums. Besides, the music still played in her head.

“I’m home, Mom.” Abruptly she sat up. She’d never realized how much Jeb sounded like John.

His feet slapped the floor in his flip-flops. Finally, he poked his head out the door. “Mom?”

She held up her empty glass. “Right here, pretty boy.”

He stepped out holding an empty gin bottle and regarded her with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. “How long have you been out here?”

“Have no clue. How long you been gone?” she slurred, then winked.

“Ms. Morgan?” Officer Seabrook walked out of the darkness behind Jeb. “Er . . . I came to show you the coin.”

“Damn,” Callie whispered, and then giggled. “Busted!”

“Geez, Mom.” Jeb squatted in front of her. “How many did you have?”

Callie threw her head back and closed her eyes. She held out her arms, still holding the glass. “Here I am, drinking at home. I’m not driving, not wandering the street. Yet”—and she pointed a finger—“I’m judged.”

Jeb’s face took on a pained, red-hued expression.

Seabrook laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll come back tomorrow, son.”

Jeb flinched and reacted in a raised voice, as if having to save face in front of the tall cop. “Mom, what’s the deal? I thought you quit doing this sort of thing.”

Callie laid her head back. “No big deal, Jeb. I needed something to ease off to sleep.”

Seabrook moved back to the doorway. “I’ll call first next time.” He left and spoke over his shoulder. “Y’all take care.”

Jeb continued to kneel and study his mother. After several heavy seconds, her man-child shook his head and went inside.

Callie listened for his bedroom door to close then slowly stood. Leaning on the wall for balance, she ventured inside, lifted the albums on the spindle until they caught, then restarted the player. As
Cracklin
’
Rosie
played again, she filled her glass with tap water and chugged the contents with two aspirin, as usual, singing and humming random phrases along with Neil.

Back outside, she collapsed in her chair, sloshing water on her khakis. She tilted her head back and listened, humming.

And when the song was over, she cried.

Chapter 7

DEEP, REVERBERATING jolts of pain pierced Callie’s head at the unholy buzz of her alarm. She shut off the noise with a blind sweep of her hand, shoving the clock off the back of the nightstand.
Damn it to hell!

She hated hangover sludge in her veins. It would take a full day of heavy hydration to resettle her system. Digging her head into her pillow, she mashed the cool percale against her flushed cheek, while her alcohol-logged mind fought a tug-of-war with her conscience about whether to drag her butt out of a perfect-temperature bed.

The overhead fan whirred. A truck rolled by like a freight train. The odor of cooked eggs floated from the kitchen, and her stomach roiled.

Voices drifted under her door.

Flinging the coverlet back, Callie dropped off the high bed, her feet smacking the floor, and she reached for the nightstand at the unexpected room-spin. A stomach lurch reminded her she hadn’t eaten dinner, much less breakfast.

She opened a tiny crack in the door. Jeb busied himself in the kitchen dressed and fresh, chatting to a boy roughly his age. The guest had black curly locks that danced about as he spoke. A white tank top accented his deeply tanned muscular build.

Excellent
. She smiled. Jeb brought home a friend.

She hadn’t exercised in days, and her head hurt, but as much as she wanted to add a day to that neglect, she wouldn’t. Back in Middleton, after one of Beverly’s marathon cocktail hours, Callie would rise, dress for a run, then sit for a half hour with her head in her hands trying not to ralph into the community garbage can. She’d abstain for three days, return to the track, then get roped into drinks again with her mother.

She didn’t have to do that here. And she wished she’d told herself that last night.

Callie threw on her running shorts and standard long-sleeve sports top to cover her arm. After wiping a cold washrag across her face and brushing her teeth, she made for the kitchen.

“Hey, guys,” she said, rounding the breakfast bar, almost bumping the guest. “Who’s this?”

Jeb put an omelet on a plate. Oatmeal filled two bowls, something foreign dotting the soft beige surface. “Zeus Bianchi,” Jeb said, setting a plate and bowl in front of his friend. “Is that a cool name or what? He’s starting a fishing guide business.”

“Hey,” Zeus replied. “Mom told me all about you. A detective, huh? Awesome.”

Jeb set the skillet back on the stove. “You want me to fix you some of this, Mom?”

She scrunched her nose, her gut not so eager to engage with food. “I’ll pass.” She peered over one of the bowls. “I think this is oatmeal, but what’s with the weird bits hiding in it?”

Zeus’s laugh bounced easy, deceptively confident for his age, as if he owned the air around him but would be happy to share it. “Pumpkin seeds, flax, and goji berries. I promised to try Jeb’s breakfast, including the yolk and whatever non-meat item he wanted, if he’d try mine.”

“Enjoy the heat,” she replied, wondering about the level of spice Jeb hid in those eggs.

“Oh, I can handle the sun,” Zeus asked. “I grew up in this heat.”

“Mom,” Jeb interrupted before she revealed his surprise of jalapenos, onions, and Tabasco. “You all right after yesterday?”

“Of course,” she lied.

Zeus leaned on his elbow and wove a large coin from one finger to another, then back again, like a parlor trick.

Callie caught herself watching it, a little disturbed. “What kind of coin is that?”

Zeus ceased the flipping and studied the piece as if for the first time. “Says dollar on it. I found it on the kitchen table next to Mom’s orange juice this morning when I got back from fishing. Figured she was baiting me to do the dishes.”

Geez. Sophie’s house? She reached out. “May I see it?”

The silver dollar read 1921, another Morgan, and, if she was right, one that remained in immaculate shape from its life on Papa Beach’s wall. Tingling apprehension sprinted through her. Sophie’s open house had welcomed a secret visitor.

“Where’s your sister?” Callie asked.

Zeus’s brow lifted to the edge of his long curls. “With Mom at yoga, why?”

Thank God no one had been in the house when the visitor entered. However, having Chelsea Morning sandwiched between Sophie’s and Papa’s crime scenes now gave Callie a vulnerable sense of exposure.

“I’ll give you ten bucks for the coin. I’m sort of a collector,” she said.

Jeb turned from his kitchen duties, puzzlement on his face.

“Seriously?” Zeus asked. “How much you think it’s worth? I might want to keep it.”

“Tell you what,” Callie said, holding the dollar up between two fingers. “Next time I go into Charleston, I’ll get it appraised.” She lifted three fingers. “Scout’s honor. You can have the money, whether from me or the appraiser. Deal? Least I can do for Jeb’s new friend and the son of my new neighbor.”

Zeus beamed. “Sure! I’m supposed to be able to trust a detective, right?”

She winked. “When does your mom get home?”

“Nine thirty if she doesn’t get to talking too much. Hey, I really appreciate this.” Zeus stood and held out his hand. “Great to meet you.”

Callie returned the firm shake. “A pleasure, Zeus. Bet that name gets attention.”

“Girls love it,” he said, grinning.

“Yeah,” she laughed. “I suspect so.”

“You seem calmer than I expected,” Zeus said to her. “Everybody’s still talking after seeing you on the beach with a gun.”

Callie fought the wince and shrugged. “I only do that to get Jeb to come home for dinner.”

“Mom!” Jeb protested, as Zeus chuckled.

“See you guys later. Time to run.”

“
Namaste
, Miss Callie.”

Outside, she bent her left leg, her foot touching her butt to stretch her thigh. She jogged the three blocks up Cupid Street toward the ocean. The ninety-degree temperature promised a record high by afternoon.

At Beach Access 7, waves licked the pier’s posts forty feet out, the salt spray flavoring gusts of wind. The tide was rolling in, but she still had firm sand to run on. After another hamstring stretch, she tucked the silver dollar in her pocket with her house key and toyed with heading toward the Pavilion to catch Sophie. Not wanting to get roped into yoga, however, she took off southwest toward the beach curve that faced St. Helena Sound. Swimming-suited tourists would dribble out over the next couple of hours, but for now, the beach lay wide open except for the occasional loner stretched out on a towel reading or dolphin watchers studying distant breakers with binoculars.